By Liam Dowd - May 20th, 2014

Our roundup of this week's key news and developments in the world of corporate social media

The content marketing conundrum

Marketers know that content is king when it comes to audience engagement especially across the social media landscape. However, marketers seem to be have an immense amount of trouble deciding how to develop their content marketing strategies, and which channels these materials should be focused upon.

A new infographic from JBH succinctly summaries the issues and offers some timely solutions. What is clear for all to see is that social media can encompass multiple content formats. Marketers need to closely understand their audiences and develop multi-format content that will engage with them. Ultimately the right content will connect with a consumer to drive high levels of conversion.

Content Creation Strategy

Silver surfers

With engagement rates on leading social media networks moving to older consumers, understanding how this potentially lucrative group of customers connect on social media is vital marketing knowledge. The infographic from Accredited Online College reveals that one in five of Twitter users is over 50, with over 27 million adults aged 55+ engaging with social media the research stating nearly half of seniors now have a Facebook account. Clearly marketers need to ensure they are not following stereotypes when developing their campaigns.

Seniors and Social Media

The need for speed

All corporations know that social media has had a lasting impact on their customer services provision. New figures though suggest that there is a mismatch between what corporations believe about their provisions, and how they are perceived by their customers.  According to statistics from eMarketer, over 90% of consumers state that the customer service they have received is lacking. Response time is a key concern here. Customer service tweets now have an expected response time of just half an hour!

Social Media Customer Response Times

Social maturity

A new study from BuyaPower looks closely at how leading brands have matured in the social media space. The study is telling in that it concludes that only Tesco is successfully monetising its social media presence using the studies three stages of social maturity that begin with collecting your audience. Continues with engaging your community, and completes with building a social sales channel.

Some 82% of global retailers remaining at stage one. After Tesco, UK retail’s highest performers included Marks & Spencer, which ranked in 17th place. With 66% of retailers were found to follow five or fewer people per every 100 followers while 43% had a ‘disappointing’ response rate to posts, which contained direct calls to action.

Gideon Lask, BuyaPowa chief executive, said: “In order to sell successfully on social platforms, retailers need to bake social into their offering, not just bolt it on - and that’s done by using techniques like gamification, dynamic pricing and co-operative buying. This research shows that, while there are some standout performers, the vast majority of retailers just aren’t making the most of the opportunities available to them in social.”

He concluded: “Tesco stands out as a classic Stage Three pioneer, having understood that its highly engaged Facebook Page, Google+ Hangouts and Twitter feed only scratch the surface of social’s potential. Ultimately brands need to get out of the habit of using social media as a blunt marketing tool and understand that it can, and should, be making you money rather than costing it.”

BuyaPowa’s Social Maturity Index

Until next time….

The Useful Social Media team.

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